


it's not how much you love

by mischief7manager



Series: but for now let's all pretend [7]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Character Study, Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6157054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischief7manager/pseuds/mischief7manager
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Percy’s not like Vax or Vex or Scanlan. He’s met some people on the road, men and women alike, that he thinks he might have been able to pursue, if he played his cards right, but then, he’s always afraid that he’s misinterpreted something. Flirtation has never been easy for him, for all he can be charming in other avenues. His siblings used to tease him about it, before. He doesn’t find it quite as funny, now."</p>
<p>A character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's not how much you love

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are at last. Title from "Pink Summer" by Summer Camp, used by Taliesin Jaffe in his Percy character playlist. Spoilers through episode 43.

     Just because Percy doesn’t  _ act _ on his desires, it doesn’t mean they’re not  _ there. _ He appreciates a beautiful person as much as anybody, and yes, it might be nice not to go to bed alone every night. But in Whitestone, being the Lord and Lady’s son made finding a partner for that sort of thing complicated, and after the Briarwoods, he had more… pressing matters to attend to. And anyway, he’s not like Vax or Vex or Scanlan. He’s met some people on the road, men and women alike, that he thinks he might have been able to pursue, if he played his cards right, but then, he’s always afraid that he’s misinterpreted something. Flirtation has never been easy for him, for all he can be charming in other avenues. His siblings used to tease him about it, before. He doesn’t find it quite as funny, now.

 

* * *

 

     Percy always knew he’d return to Whitestone. He couldn’t see any other way for this story to end, to be honest. In his time wandering, before Vox Machina, he would imagine how he would stride into town, right up to the doors of the castle. He’d slam them open, and there they’d be, the figures that haunted his nightmares. What happened next would vary: sometimes, he’d come up with speeches, tirades that listed their crimes or the names of their victims. Sometimes they would cower before him, begging for the mercy they denied his family. Sometimes, the dark times, he wouldn’t say anything, taking his revenge in silence. Sometimes they would strike first and he would pull them with him into the abyss. 

     In his imaginings, he was always alone. As he had been since that fateful night, since leaving his sister and the life he once knew to perish at the hands of monsters. This is his lot in life, he thinks, doomed to wander the earth alone until he could complete his final task. Who would be with him? Who could he take on this desperate quest, this journey that he felt down to his bones could only end in his death? He could never ask that of anyone.

     Lucky for him, he doesn’t have to. 

     (He cries when they say they’ll help him. They pretend not to notice. Another kindness he’s not worthy of. He wonders if they realize how much they’ve given him already, just in offering.)

 

* * *

 

     Honestly, he would be fine, except that people keep  _ kissing him _ .

     Scanlan, Scanlan he doesn’t mind, really. Scanlan’s kissed  _ everyone _ at some point, in various stages of inebriation, so he doesn’t take it to heart. And Vax, for all he tries to maintain his aloof and secretive rogue persona, is quite cuddly when it comes down to it. It’s a nice enough kiss, despite happening in the Underdark on the run from an army of enraged mindflayers, but Percy’s watched Vax and Gilmore dance around each other long enough that he doesn’t read too much into it. Really, all it does is remind him of how long it’s been since he got a proper kiss, and that train of thought is just depressing. And anyway, any thoughts he might have had in that direction are firmly squashed by the way Vax looks at Keyleth when he thinks no one can see. Percy’s not sure how that’s going to work out for them both, but more power to them, trying to find some good in all this. 

     (Of course, it’s complicated later by Kashaw showing up again. Percy can’t blame Keyleth for being confused, even if he is just the smallest bit disappointed. Why are the best-looking ones always straight?)

     Vex, though. Vex surprises him. He thinks it’s a singular event, in the heat of the moment. And really, he crafted some damn fine arrows for her, well worth a kiss, if he may say so himself. But then it happens again. And again. It doesn’t mean anything really, he knows, just her way of showing support and offering comfort, but it’s still a shock to his system. He’s grown unused to that kind of contact in the years since he lost his family. 

     Vex understands him, he thinks. She knows what it is to do what you must to survive, and he sees the weight of the choices he’s made reflected in her. And, despite everything that happens, despite everything he’s done, Vex, at least, is never afraid of him. It’s a comfort he would never have dared to hope for, one he knows he doesn’t deserve. In the middle of it all, he hears her voice calling his name, feels her hand close around his, and he clings to that thread of hope. It’s not much in the way of redemption, but maybe, just maybe, it’s enough.

 

* * *

 

     Percival Frederickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III.

     He knows it’s a mouthful. He used to complain about it, before. (It seems his life is always divided that way. Before, and after.) He couldn’t say the whole thing himself in one go until he was almost nine years old. And that was after he’d worked past a truly horrendous lisp. He insisted on being called Percy whenever he could, and dreaded official functions that meant putting on stiff, uncomfortable clothing and a stiff, uncomfortable name. 

     It was Julius, his older brother, who changed his mind on the matter. “Our names are important,” he told Percy after one such function, only a few months before the Briarwoods came. “They’re our history, and our power. You’re a de Rolo, whether you like it or not. One day, you’ll appreciate that for what it truly means.”

     After, Percy travels under a false name. He has a different pseudonym for every town in those years, too frightened of being recognized and hauled back for the Briarwoods to finish what they started. He says it to himself, sometimes, on the road where no one can hear, mouth forming the familiar syllables as if to reassure himself that he can still remember them, after all this time. 

     It keeps him going in that dark cell, after his spectacular failure to get revenge on Ripley. Stupid, stupid,  _ stupid _ to think he could take her on his own, stupid to go in unprepared. He cycles through spirals of self-loathing, pleas for guidance from any deities that might be listening, and his name, over and over, like a benediction and an incantation rolled into one. And when he is set free, by what might be the strangest group of people he’s ever laid eyes on, and is asked for an introduction, it spills from his mouth before he can conjure a lie.

     “Percival Frederickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III.”

     He is so very tired of running. 

 

* * *

 

     His workshop in Whitestone is almost exactly as he left it. Apparently, none of the castle’s occupants during the Briarwood’s reign of terror had thought his tools and half-finished experiments worth pillaging. It’s something of a relief to throw himself into tinkering again, to lose himself in the work. Or at least, he tries to lose himself in the work, but every so often he’ll reach for a tool and meet empty air, or turn and run into a table, his body remembering the layout of his workshop in Greyskull rather than that from his younger days. It’s jarring to realize that his former home is unfamiliar to him, even after being freed from monsters.

     The feeling persists even as he puts his tinkering aside and heads into the town proper. Reconstruction has already begun in the village, the burnt-out shells of the buildings he knew being torn down and replaced with new foundations. Whitestone will be better for it, he reminds himself, even as his heart clenches at the thought of this place he loved becoming even more unrecognizable. 

     The road before him abruptly widens, as without realizing it, Percy has made his way back to the town square. He stops and scans the open space. It is almost entirely empty. The ground is dusted with snow, marred only by scattered footprints to show that anyone has passed through. Evidence of Vox Machina’s own arrival has been buried in a fresh snowfall, and there would be no sign of their presence in the town at all, except for the lone figure sitting on the ground, knees drawn to their chest, fifteen or so feet from the Sun Tree. 

     Percy sighs, then walks over and sits down next to Vex. She doesn’t react to his arrival. Her eyes, unfocused, stare in the direction of the Sun Tree, and she’s turning an arrow over and over in her hands. He waits for a moment, then nudges her gently. “Where’s Trinket?”

     She blinks, apparently startled from her thoughts, then nods off to the side. Percy looks and sees Trinket a dozen yards down one of the side streets, cheerfully allowing a gaggle of children turns at riding on his back. 

     “I thought one of us might as well enjoy ourselves.” Vex’s voice is soft and raw, and looking closer he can see her eyes are red. He frowns, wondering if he ought to put an arm around her or something like that. Vex doesn’t usually respond well to receiving unsolicited physical contact, but her sending Trinket away, even just to the next street over, does not speak well for her current emotional state. 

     “Are you alright?” he asks finally. 

     She laughs, short and cold, and holds up the arrow she’s been toying with. He takes it from her, examining it. It’s not, as he first thought, one of her regular shafts, and after a moment’s thought, he recognizes it: this is the arrow she found in Rimefang’s cave, when she dug through his hoard in search of valuables. The dragon-killer.

     “That’s for Thordak.” She takes the arrow back and resumes turning it over and over, like he’s seen other people worry prayer stones. “When I found it, I put it aside. I wanted to save it, for…” 

     She trails off, her breath catching in her throat, and Percy finishes for her. “For the dragon that killed your mother.” She jerks around to look at him, and he meets her eyes steadily. “Vax told me.”

     She searches his face, then turns away, looking back to the arrow turning in her hands, and forces out a humorless chuckle. “And? You’re not going to talk me out of it? Tell me revenge is a bad idea?”

     He shrugs. “That depends. Made any deals with shadow demons recently that I don’t know about?” Vex laughs again, a little brokenly, but with more feeling than before. Gingerly, Percy reaches out and covers her hand with his, halting her compulsive movement. She looks up again, this time with eyes slowly filling with tears, and Percy chooses his next words carefully before he speaks. She’s been hurt enough.

     “I won’t tell you what to do,” he begins. “Or how to feel. That would be enormously hypocritical, given the circumstances.” He sighs heavily, the weight of a long day after a week of long days bearing down on him. “You were invaluable in helping me gain my vengeance, I could do no less for you. All I’ll say is this-” and he squeezes her hand, “-when the time comes, and the anger comes, don’t-” He cuts himself off. He needs to say this right. “Don’t let it consume you. You’ll want to, because anger is easier than grief, but- It will destroy you, if you’re not careful.”

     “You weren’t destroyed,” she says softly.

     He laughs. “It was a very near thing,” he says, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “And I had you to pull me back.” 

     “You did, didn’t you.” Vex lets the arrow fall and shifts her hand so she can squeeze his back. They sit like that for a while, in the snowfallen quiet of Whitestone, not ten feet from the spot of their conversation the evening of the post-rebellion celebration, days and weeks and lifetimes ago. 

     “Did you mean what you said?” Vex asks after several minutes. “About rebuilding the Keep?”

     “Of course. You gave me my home back,” he says, gesturing to the village around them. “Of course I’d do the same.” 

     Her breath hitches, and Percy has only a moment to realize she’s crying before her head comes to rest on his shoulder. Then, so quiet he can barely hear it: “I love you, Percival. You know that, right?”

     He smiles, and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “And I love you, Vex.” 

     They sit there before the Sun Tree for a long time, not speaking, just leaning on one another, and Percy smiles in spite of himself. In the midst of all the destruction and chaos, despite abandoning Greyskull and being lost in Whitestone, here, in this moment, Vex’s hand in his--

     He’s home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there it is. The end of this series. I have to thank my sister, for letting me throw ideas and problems at her despite not having watched a single episode of Critical Role (at that point. She's on Temple Showdown as of this being published. I dragged her into this hell with me, and I've never been so proud), as well as all of the critters, here and over on tumblr, who have left such lovely comments and messages for me. This has been a wonderful experience on all levels, and I highly doubt I'm done writing for this fandom just yet.   
> Thanks again, to all of you. I'll see you around, and, as always: #IsItThursdayYet?


End file.
